Mollari's Hunter Guide

EVERYTHING YOU’VE EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT RAIDING AS A BM HUNTER AND MORE…
Written by Mollari of The Underbog
This guide is for BM hunters to check out and hopefully learn something from. As a dps class, it’s your responsibility to be doing as much damage as you’re capable of. Understanding and applying the concepts in this guide will help you reach that point. I’m going to cover a large amount of random topics with only a small amount of organization and sequence, so bear with it…
SPREADSHEET
First off, every hunter should be familiar with, and use, Cheeky’s spreadsheet. This work of art is a gear/spec/rotation calculator that will make your life simple. Next time someone says “LAWL stupid huntard, you’re raiding with your PVP VENGEFUL HELM? Go to Kara and get t4, noob,” you can go ahead to plug it into the spreadsheet to make sure you’re not doing anything huntarded. (trust me, you’re not…the vengeful helm should be worn by all BM hunters up until hyjal/bt…the only way you can beat it is if the t5 helm is completing your 4piece for +5% crit on steady shot…otherwise stick with vengeful)
Here’s a link to the spreadsheet, if you don’t have it yet…GET IT
http://www.havoc-guild.us/Cheeky/Hunter_DPS_Calc.xls
Plug your gear, pet, and talents into the respective tabs and profit. You also want to make sure you have the correct shot rotation selected, which leads me to…
SHOT ROTATION & WEAPON SPEED
Here’s the good stuff. This is how you pump out the dps. It’s easily possible for a knowledgeable hunter in Kara epics to out-dps many t5 level hunters simply by smart weapon choice and a rotation that fits it. I’m going to consider kill command a given as it will always be used when available via macro or hand clicked.
1:1 rotation
I’ll start with the basics. Your auto shot is going off every X seconds (we’ll say 2.1 for this example…sunfury’s speed). This number is determined by the speed of your weapon and any haste gear you’re wearing (obviously quiver speed and SS talent as well). You want to make sure you’re not using any shots when that auto is about to go off so you don’t “clip” it. You have 2.1 seconds to use any shots you want at this time…what can you do in 2.1 seconds? STEADY SHOT! Steady shot is your best friend as a BM hunter….sure you can toss an arcane or multi shot in instead…but more than twice the mana for about the same dmg? Hell no. If you have endless mana (spriest in group) I’d say go for it, but in most cases it’s best to just stick to steady (especially if your group is usually made up of the tanks and a lock…thanks bounty). Although it seems like the best option would be to use a steady shot and then squeeze in a multi or arcane before the auto goes off, this is almost impossible because of lag, frame rates, and other hard to calculate factors. So Auto-Steady-Auto-Steady-Auto-Steady…yep…that’s your 1:1 shot rotation. Given your speed is 2.1…here is what your rotation will look like…
I-------- ----auto---------------I-------------auto--------------I--------------auto-------------I--------------auto-------------I
I--------steady----------Ixxxx I--------steady---------Ixxxx I--------steady---------Ixxxx I--------steady----------IxxxxI
So what does this show? Your auto is going off every 2.1 seconds, and steady only takes 1.5 seconds to cast. I represented the .6 seconds of “downtime” by the xxx’s. During this “downtime” you are doing NOTHING at all.
For a BM hunter using Sunfury from prince, you’ll be stuck with the downtime I modeled in the above example. Like I said earlier, you don’t want to completely remove downtime because you need to take a little bit of lag and whatnot into account to be sure you’re not clipping the next auto shot. From personal experience, a shot speed of 1.7-1.8 is perfect if you want to be on the safe side. This means that with Sunfury you still have .3-.4 seconds of downtime. How can you fix this? WEAPON SPEED! Pick up Wolfslayer from opera...it will put your speed at 1.96. I know I know, the tooltip says that Sunfury is more dps than Wolfslayer…ignore it. Believe it or not, a BM hunter using Wolfslayer will yield more dps on a boss than a BM hunter using ILLIDAN’S BOW. ZoMGZ WHaT? IT DroPZ of ILlIDANZ ITZ oBviouSLY BetTER Than a KARAZHAN gUN? Sadly it’s not; because of the speed of the gun…the extra shots you’ll squeeze in on a long fight will end up being more damage than the slower and harder hitting shots from the Black Bow of the Betrayer. If you don’t believe me use the spreadsheet and find out for yourself. Pretty depressing that you might as well disenchant every ranged weapon drop after Kara? There’s a way around it. ~ H A S T E ~
Yep, Haste is the way to go. Although it’s a very expensive stat in terms of itemization points (you’ll be losing a lot of other stats on a piece to get some haste) it can be the deciding factor in which weapon you’ll be using. In the common Sunfury vs. Wolfslayer comparison…wolf wins by a long shot. However, say you’re wearing about 110 passive haste rating…you’ve now trimmed down your “downtime” enough that it’s about the same as Wolfslayers’…but now you have a harder hitting weapon shooting just as fast, w00t.

Get your rotation to look like that with a hard hitting weapon and you’re set.
3:2 rotation
Now here’s where it gets tricky…the 3:2 rotation. 3 steady shots for every 2 autos. How is this possible when a BM hunter only has around 1.9 seconds to weave something in? By INTENTIONALLY CLIPPING your auto shot. This is done by spamming steady shot even during a cast and can only be done with a macro. Yep, I realize I just went on and on about how you never want to clip an auto shot…well the 3:2 rotation flips the whole situation around. With this rotation a slower weapon is PREFERED and little to no haste is required. If you were to model it, it would look something like this…

While this rotation is obviously less mana efficient (60% of your shots are using mana instead of 50%) many believe it can yield greater dps. You can determine this by yourself through the spreadsheet and/or personal testing. We can model shot damages based on patterns and timing, but can't generate the patterns and timing reliably, putting slightly more emphasis on testing instead of using the spreadsheet (when it comes to a rotation). Hunters with 4 pieces of t5 or t6 would most likely prefer this rotation because both set bonuses benefit steady shot and you’d get more out of it with a higher number of steadys.
There are widely varying opinions on the topic of shot rotations. Cheeky himself has Vashj’s bow banked and still uses wolf slayer from kara. Personally, I’m still not positive which rotation/speed I prefer. Lately I’ve had success with a slower weapon and the 3:2 rotation but I have never gotten Wolfslayer to drop for me, so I have yet to compare the two for myself.
SHOT MACRO
There are those who think spamming a macro is “cheating” or “noob”. Screw them. Hunter rotations can get complex, especially if you change it during hasted situations and when improved aspect of the hawk procs. Imagine this scenario; you are fighting Al’ar in phase 2, trying your best to down him so you can get your hands on his sick trinket (LAWL – see trinket section). Your responsibility is staying inside the ring when he meteors, targeting the adds when they spawn, misdirecting them onto your add tank, micromanaging yourself and your pet to avoid flame patches, killing the adds ASAP without blowing up the rogues (unless you want to…I try my best) and your pet. You are also STARING at your auto shot cast bar, making sure to weave a steady at the perfect time every 1.7-1.8 seconds, clicking kill command every 6-7 seconds when it’s up, and adjusting to your IAoTH whenever it procs knowing that if you fail at any of this you are not running at your max possible DPS. If you can handle controlling your rotation during times like this, more power to you. Personally, I know that I cannot. I use macros to control my rotations (it’s also impossible to use a 3:2 rotation without a macro forcing your shots into that pattern.) Here are the macros I use.
1:1
/castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot, !Auto Shot
/cast [target=pettarget, exists] Kill Command
/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
3:2
/cast !Auto shot
/cast [target=pettarget, exists] Kill Command
/cast Steady Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()

3:2 w/ wind serpent
/cast !Auto shot
/cast [target=pettarget, exists] Kill Command
/cast [target=pettarget, exists] Lightning Breath(Rank 6)
/cast Steady Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
These macros should be spammed. I bind them to my mouse wheel and it works wonders. While the 1:1 macro I posted is generally accepted, there is no definitive 3:2 macro. As of now, there is too much interference with latency, jitter in latency, and speed in spamming the macro to determine a generally accepted sequence. The 3:2 macro listed above is what I’ve personally found success with.
Another interesting aspect regarding the 3:2 macro is the placement of kill command. There have been many complaints of people noticing that when kill command procs it ends up pushing back auto shot a little (something that should not happen due to kill command being on its own GCD.) The effect would look something like this…

Personally, I haven’t noticed this problem. If you DO happen to see this happening you might want to try moving the kill command line in the macro. I’ve read that putting it in between the auto and steady cast could affect the pushback differently than putting at the end of the sequence. The way I understand it, all of the commands in a macro theoretically happen at the same time, so it shouldn't matter. However, computers are sequential machines, so you never know. Either way, I'd put KC before steady (like I have shown above). If they are indeed simultaneous, you'll have no problem…but if they are not, it will have the proper priority.
Another option is to just simply remove kill command all together from the macro. While I haven’t needed to do this, binding it to a key and popping it whenever it’s up would fix the auto shot problem for those who experience it.
PETS, THEIR SPEC, AND YOURS
Let’s start with pets. If you are trying to maximize dps, you have four options.
CAT/RAPTOR – Probably the most common hunter pets. These two, like the ravager, have a +10% damage modifier. They also have dash which can be a helpful ability when pulling your pet out of an AoE effect or something.
RAVAGER – The ravager is said to be slightly higher overall dps than a cat/raptor because of its gore ability.
Wind Serpent – A more interesting option for a pet as a wind serpent only has a 7% damage modifier, 3% less than the above choices. On the other hand, it has lightning breath, an ability that deals good damage and ignores armor, but eats up focus. Hunters who are better at theory crafting than myself have calculated that if you have around 30% or higher crit rating, the wind serpent becomes the highest dps pet available. This is because of the Go for the Throat talent, every time you crit your pet gains 50 focus back. A hunter with a high enough crit % can essentially keep a wind serpent’s focus up so that it can consistently spam lightning breath, putting it above all other pets on dps output.
A great site for researching pets is http://petopia.brashendeavors.net/
Choosing how you spec your pet is pretty simple. Obviously max rank damaging abilities should be learned (claw, lightning breath, etc.) and you want to make sure your pet knows cobra reflexes and max rank avoidance. After the essentials are taken care of, you will have a lot of extra points. I find putting points into armor is pretty pointless…if your pet gets hit by a melee mob cleaving or something, it’s pretty much dead. Stamina is more important because most of the damage it takes is smaller but faster tics of AoE. On that note, I spec my pet with resistances. I use two pets, one is spec’d for TK with full fire and arcane resistance and the other is spec’d for SSC with full frost and nature resist. I’d highly recommend having 2 raiding pets; this way you won’t have to keep respec’ing one for whichever raid you’ll be bringing it to. I use the leftover points on pure stamina. There is also a slight dps difference depending on the order you place your pets abilities on the bar, as the leftmost one is used first. You can calculate the best order by using the “pet” tab on Cheeky’s spreadsheet.
Spec’ing your hunter is also pretty simple.
Here’s the build that I raid with http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=ctbM0gxRwuVoVVbRV
There are a few talents that NEED to be taken and are included in every cookie cutter BM spec (IAotH, Unleashed Fury, Ferocity, Frenzy, FI, SS, The Win Within, Lethal Shots, and Mortal Shots.) The few talents that I feel are important, but some people chose not to take, are improved mend pet and animal handler. In regards to improved mend pet…your pet is around 30% of your overall damage, making it very important to keep it alive. Why not take a more efficient AND mana efficient version of the spell? Animal handler is not chosen for the increased mount speed (though it’s a plus), the real benefit of it is your pets +4% chance to hit. Your pet will miss a lot, and this talent is the only way to reduce that.
ITEM VALUES, GEARING, AND HUNTERS IN LEATHER *whistles*
Deciding if a piece of armor will yield a dps increase is extremely simple in comparison to picking a ranged weapon upgrade, but there are still some things to consider.
First let’s talk about the hit cap. As a BM hunter you do not have the surefooted talent. Your hit cap will be 142. While obtaining this is certainly helpful, it is NOT your top priority. I’ll explain what’s generally referred to as the “hit cap trap”. It’s likely that if you’re hit capped and swap out a piece of gear that adds a lot of crit but takes you under the hit cap, you’ll still notice a dps increase. Let me elaborate. Say on a raid boss fight your hit rating is it at 125 and you sit at about 99% chance to hit. During this fight, you shoot 500 shots. With those stats, it’s calculated you will miss 5 total shots all fight. It’s ALMOST GARUNTEED that subbing in a piece with 17 more hit rating (putting you at your cap), but costing you 1% crit on the piece you’re subbing out, will be a dps LOSS. You can use the spreadsheet to determine this. It should also be taken into consideration that you have a CHANCE to miss 5 shots; while this means you may sometimes miss a few more…you may also miss NONE. Think of hit rating with diminishing returns in mind, the closer you get to the cap…the less dps a few more points invested will bring you. Ultimately, Cheeky’s spreadsheet should be the deciding factor because both diminishing returns, and relationships between stats, are built in. Finally, the WORST thing you can do stat-wise is be over your hit cap as it’s a complete waste of itemization points. For those that are unfamiliar with that concept, I’ll explain...
Every item is assigned an item level (iLvl) depending on where it’s from (you can see this level on wowhead and there are also mods available that show it in game). Kara drops are generally iLvl 115, while ssc/tk items are mostly 128. Every stat has its own “value” that’s translated into itemization points. You may have noticed that some hunters choose to wear a few leather pieces (including myself). For those who are interesting in maximizing their personal dps (as everyone should be), a few leather pieces are often the answer. This is because of itemization points. I’m going to create a simple example to help explain this…keep in mind these numbers are fictional and are just being used to illustrate what I’m trying to get across. Say that there’s two iLvl 100 chest pieces. One is itemized for a hunter, and the other for a rogue. Let’s say that Agility, Stamina, Intellect, Hit rating, and Attack Power all cost 1 itemization point each (like I said…this is just for the example). Here are the fictional leather and mail chest pieces that could be created using those numbers.

Leather Chest of the Itemization Example (iLvl 100)
Leather
+25 Agility (25 points)
+25 Stamina (25 points)
Equip: Increases hit rating by 15 (15 points)
Equip: Increases Attack Power by 35 (35 points)
Points spent 100 points

Mail Chest of the Itemization Example (iLvl 100)
Mail
+25 Agility (25 points)
+25 Stamina (25 points)
+15 Intellect (15 points)
Equip: Increases hit rating by 15 (15 points)
Equip: increases Attack Power by 20 (20 points)
Points spent 100 points
Given those are the 2 pieces; some (myself included) would consider Intellect on the mail piece a “waste” of itemization points. The leather piece has the same agility and stamina, the same hit rating, but MORE attack power because the mail piece had to sacrifice some to get intellect in there. Ignoring the armor value (irrelevant in my opinion, you’re going to get one shot’d if you get hit in a raid regardless of wearing full mail compared to few pieces of leather), leather is usually the better choice for a hunter in a pure dps aspect. Now don’t go dropping all your mail and decking your hunter out in full leather just yet…while losing a little intellect isn’t a big deal, losing ALL of it from your mail gear IS a big deal. You need to try to find the right amount where you can keep your mana pool relatively high and still work some leather into your gear setup. I tend to prefer 2-3 pieces of leather and have the rest be mail pieces with intellect on them. Find what’s best for you and go with it.
In regards to what I said before about going over your hit cap being a COMPLETE waste of itemization points…I hope it makes sense now. Say your hit rating was at 150. That puts you 8 over the cap. If my example numbers were true, that’s 8 itemization points doing absolutely NOTHING! Those points could be spent on something else…even stam would be better utilized. Make sure to pay notice to item level though, a piece of gear from SSC/TK that’s level 128 and putting you 8 points over your hit cap could still be a better piece than a level 115 from kara. Even though there’s 8 wasted points, the item still has 5 extra useful points compared to the kara piece solely because of its higher item level. This is the reason that some PvP gear can be viable for raiding. In my own gear setup at this time, I use the vengeful helm (iLvl 146), the vengeful axe (iLvl 146), and the vindicator’s ring (iLvl 141). Even though these pieces have completely wasted points on resilience and have a little bit more stam than necessary, their item level is so high that regardless of the wasted points, the USEFUL points are still enough to make these pieces VERY good.
Here’s a link regarding the exact values assigned to certain stats for those who are interested…
http://www.wowwiki.com/Level_(Item)
METAS, ENCHANTS, AND GEMS, OH MY!
The best choice for a meta socket, the best enchants, and the best gems can all be determined by plugging the many options into the spreadsheet. I’m going to cover this briefly and provide a little explanation to the choices to save you time comparing values in the spreadsheet. If you’re raiding at a t5 level, money should not be an issue concerning enchants and gems. You should come to raids complete with the best enchants and gems available to you.
The ONLY option for a raiding BM hunter Meta socket is the Relentless Earthstorm Diamond. While you can never go wrong with the +12 Agility, it’s the 3% Increased Critical Damage that really makes this shine. Due to the Mortal Shots talent your crits are hitting for 30% more damage, slapping another 3% onto that is incredible.
Enchants are simple…AGILITY. While +12 Agility and +24 AP yield very similar dps, the +12 Agility is always slightly better because of the balance it provides between crit and AP (can be further proven by using the spreadsheet.) Agility also scales with kings giving you +10% to all stats. Agility benefits from that, and AP does not…it’s simple. Using my +12 agi vs 24 AP example, with kings on (almost guaranteed in a 25 man raid) you’d have +13 agi vs 24 AP. Some would say big deal…another +1 agi…who cares? While it is a small amount…if you take ALL your gear where you chose Agi over AP (including gems and enchants), it will add up. On another note, while it’s a tiny increase…why the hell would you pass it up? Even though it’s small, why gimp yourself in a small way? Stick with Agi enchants, don’t let money be an issue.
Gemming is pretty similar to enchants. GET AGILITY! The +8 agi gem (delicate living ruby) is your best friend; try to get as many of these as you can into your gear as they will provide the best dps (use the spreadsheet if you don’t believe me.) The only thing holding you back from going pure +8 agi gems are socket bonuses and the Meta socket requirement. Use your personal preference and/or the spreadsheet to determine if you want to shoot for the socket bonus or not. In regards to the Meta socket, if you’re using Relentless Earthstorm (as you should be), you will need 2 red, 2 yellow, 2 blue. Red is simple, +8 Agility. For yellow sockets I prefer +8 AP +4 Crit but +4 Agi +4 Hit is also a good option if you’re lacking some hit. The only viable options for the blue socket are +4 Agi +6 Stam, and +8 AP +2mp5.
GEMS
Meta socket - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=32409
Red socket - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=24028
Yellow socket - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=31868 or http://www.wowhead.com/?item=24061
Blue socket - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=31865 or http://www.wowhead.com/?item=24055
ENCHANTS
Ranged Weapon - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=23766
2h Weapon - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=22556
Helm - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29192
Cape - http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=34004
Chest - http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=27960
Wrist - http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=34002
Hands - http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=25080
Legs - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29535
Boots - http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=27951
That’s a simple list of what I’ve found to be the highest possible dps gems and enchants. You can use the spreadsheet to see what’s best for you depending on your current gear, but what is listed above is going to be your best bet 99% of the time. Like I’ve mentioned before, don’t let money gimp your dps…get the best available.
ANAYLSIS OF TRINKETS AVAILABLE AT T5 LEVEL RAIDING
Although Cheeky’s spreadsheet can you give the exact numbers of how much you’d benefit from different trinkets, I think it’s important to understand the reasoning behind some. While there are some other good options aside from the ones I’m about to mention, these are the select few I felt like commenting on.
Talon of Al’ar - Equip: Your Arcane Shot ability increases the damage dealt by all other damaging shots by 40 for 6 sec.
-God, what a piece of crap. While at first glance it looks like a solid trinket, don’t be fooled by the item level or hunter specific label. The first problem with using this trinket is that it’s proc’d from Arcane Shot; a shot you will rarely be using as a BM hunter. The BIGGEST problem with the Talon is that it does NOT affect auto shot damage…yep…auto shot damage will NOT CHANGE when you’re wearing this. Some may argue it’s good for fights where you’re on the move and can slip Arcane Shots in. The problem with this argument is that the damage increase will only affect special shots. When you’re moving, arcane is the only instant special shot you can use (multi-shot may be instant, but can’t be used while moving/kiting)…unless you fire off your next arcane the exact moment the six second cooldown is up, NONE of your shots will even receive the damage increase. My advice is to hold onto this worthless waste of a bank slot and just pray it gets changed someday.
Bloodlust Brooch - Equip: Increases attack power by 72.
Use: Increases attack power by 278 for 20 sec. (2 Min Cooldown)
-Yep…if you don’t have this…GET IT NOW. For a simple 41 badges this hot piece of ass can be yours before you even step into SSC/TK. You can never go wrong with a static 72 AP, not to mention the use effect. To make this trinket even MORE effective, pop it simultaneously with Big Red so that you’re at the highest AP you can be at while benefiting from the +10% damage increase.
Tsunami Talisman – Equip: Improves hit rating by 10.
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 38.
Equip: Chance on critical hit to increase your attack power by 340 for 10 secs.
-Arnold Schwarzenegger is to Jim Carey, as the Tsunami Talisman is to the Hourglass. This badass trinket is the Hourglass on steroids. Having a static crit increase along with some hit rating and a massive AP proc is pretty tough to beat. Some argue that this is the best in game trinket for a BM hunter; Personally, I can’t find a reason to disagree.
Dragonspine Trophy - Equip: Increases attack power by 40.
Equip: Your melee and ranged attacks have a chance to increase your haste rating by 325 for 10 sec.
-Now this is a tricky one. If used correctly, this can be a GREAT hunter trinket. In regards to a hunter using this trinket with a fast weapon and a 1:1 rotation, you’ll notice a dps increase unless you are hasted to the point of getting screwed by GCD. The slower your weapon, the less chance you’ll experience GCD problems when combined with other haste effects such as a shaman’s bloodlust. Like mentioned in the shot rotation portion of this guide, a slow weapon can still be used in a 1:1 rotation given the hunter has a decent amount of haste. This trinket is the bread and butter of that approach. On another note some say that DST is arguably pointless for a hunter using a 3:2 rotation. The reason behind this is that when the haste procs it essentially forces you into a 1:1 rotation. I feel that this would be BENEFICIAL since you now have a slower and harder hitting weapon being pushed into the mana and dmg efficient rotation that it was normally too slow to achieve. Now you just need to be lucky enough to win this over a rogue…or just wait until they all have one.
Darkmoon Card: Crusade - Equip: Each time you deal melee or ranged damage to an opponent, you gain 6 attack power for the next 10 sec., stacking up to 20 times.  Each time you land a harmful spell on an opponent, you gain 8 spell damage for the next 10 sec., stacking up to 10 times.
-This trinket is very fight dependant. On a fight where you can keep the 20 stack buff up it’s literally a constant 120AP increase…not too shabby. On the other hand, if you’re frequently experiencing periods of 10 seconds or more where you’re not shooting anything…this trinket isn’t something you’d want to be using. A huge plus to this card is that, like the bloodlust brooch, it requires absolutely no luck on rolls and no guild progression to acquire (though it could be expensive to collect a blessings deck).
CONSUMABLES AND YOU
Come prepared to raids. If you are not using consumables, it’s not fair to the people that are. Bring more Fel Mana Potions and/or Super Mana Potions than you think you’ll need. Fel Mana Pots are incredible for a hunter…especially if you’re using the mana whoring 3:2 rotation. I also make sure that I have enough superior mana oil to last for about 5 hours. If you’re not flasking (flasks should only really be used when learning fights) make sure you have a good supply of major agility potions and agility/ap food. Here’s your grocery list…
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=31677 – Lifeson, your friendly neighborhood shaman, is a potion master and has the recipe for these. He enjoys making them, they’re his favorite
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=22521 – Canstanje LOVES making these, but he’s a cheap bitch so make sure you bring the vial needed for it…
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=27664 – I can cook these
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=27659 - I can cook these
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=22854 – Lifeson can also make these…what a swell guy
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=22831 – Vaniish is an elixir master and usually makes these for me
RANDOM HUNTER TIPS IN SSC/TK
While most of the information I’m offering in this section is pretty obvious once you’ve done the fights, I think it will help those who have yet to experience them. Keep In mind I am not explaining the fights, you can watch a video or listen to Idealist for that…I’m just offering hunter related tips that I’ve picked up (mostly pertaining to pet survivability.)
Tempest Keep
Void Reaver: Annoying fight as a hunter as your pet will be taking massive damage. Between frequent mend pets, full arcane resistance (see my section on pet spec’ing), and your pet hopefully stealing some chain heals from the rogues…it’s not too bad. My pet has never died on this fight. If the going gets rough, just pull him out (this is why I love dash, wait till mend pet heals him up (or bandage if ya have to), and then send him back in. Two pieces of t5 would make this a joke. Feign often as to stay low on the aggro list (though this almost always applies, in this fight it’s especially important)
Al’ar: Also an annoying fight for your pet. During phase one only send your pet to attack al’ar when he’s at platforms 1 or 4. Even with dash you won’t be able to get your pet off the upper level when al’ar flame buffets from one of the other positions. Phase 2 is a lot of luck in regards to pet survival. Most of the time it’s impossible for him to avoid flame patches, you just need to hope that the full fire resistance and a mend pet will keep him up while you move away. When killing adds, pull your pet out when the add is around 25% health to avoid him taking damage from the explosion. Be VERY careful as to not pull agro on an add, I often feign after putting a few shots on it.
Solarian: There is no agro on this fight so go all out. It’s a very easy fight for your pet as well. The only thing that can really kill it would be if she targets it with arcane missiles (not even sure if this can happen, I’d assume it’s like Aran though…and he sure as hell can do it). If that happens, just res up the pet and keep going as it’s unlikely to happen again. If you’re lucky, your pet may even get heals from those using a heal-target-of-target macro on her missiles.
Kael’thas: During phase 1 I’d suggest keeping your pet away from Thaladred as it has a random chance to just get totally owned. Obviously it shouldn’t go near Capernian either. Phase 2 I start off by putting my pet on the staff (which we kill first) and then when I switch to the mace and other weapons I’ll send my pet over to the bow (to keep it away from the axe’s whirlwind). During phase 3, if you’re killing Thaladred, just toss your pet over to Sanguinar until it’s time to move onto him. Though I don’t have much experience at this time on phase 4 and 5, I’ve noticed that the phoenix AoE can own your pet pretty quickly.
Make sure to have some empty bag space so you can create arrows when you pick up the legendary bow. The first time you use it, it will create 6 stacks of arrows which will be plenty for the remainder of the fight. Here is the macro I use after I loot the bow…you need to click it 4 times for all the commands to take effect.
/equip [combat] Netherstrand Longbow
/use Netherstrand Longbow
/use Bundle of Nether Spikes
/equip Nether Spike
Serpenshrine Cavern
Lurker: This is a very fun fight as a hunter as you can’t pull aggro. You can go all out on dps. Keep your pet on lurker the whole fight (even when you’re underwater). When lurker dives and the adds come out, toss your pet on the melee mob in the middle while you attack adds on the islands.
Hydross: Your pet will take no damage on this fight. Your only concern as a hunter is not pulling aggro on the boss or the adds… ever. When you’re dps’ing adds, put a few shots in on each and then tab target to another so that your aggro is evenly distributed.
Leo: This fight requires solid pet control to both keep your pet alive, and make sure he doesn’t grab aggro at the wrong time. During the human phase I keep my pet at my side as I often don’t feel like micromanaging it to keep it from getting hit by a whirlwind. Once the warlock grabs aggro on the demon phase, toss you pet on him and blow all your cooldowns…it’s dps time. As for the inner demon, make sure to toss up a serpent sting and use a snake trap because the demon takes added damage from nature. Other than that, just kite it a little until it’s dead…a hunter should never fail to kill their inner demon (I’ve found it helpful to pull my pet back to my side when the Leo is about to cast insidious whisper or whatever the hell it’s called).
Tidewalker: Shoot the boss for a while. If you get bored…whisper sexual comments to bountyhunter like Toonces does.
Karathress: Another pretty simple fight. Follow the kill order and make sure to kill totems as they spawn. Here’s the macro to target them…
/target spitfire
Vashj: Your strategy in this fight can vary depending on what you’re asked to do. I have always done elementals in phase 2 and killed bats in phase 3. If you are doing the same…use aspect of the viper all fight up until phase 3 because the elementals could be tough on your mana. In phase 1 just make sure not to use much mana (I auto-shot most of the time…you’ll need the mana for elementals). Phase 2 you just dps elementals and make sure to chain chug mana pots to keep your mana up. If your pet is taking a lot of dmg, ask your healer to toss a heal on him (one of the only fights where that is allowed), if your pet dies you’re going to have a rough time. When phase 3 begins, toss your pet on Vashj as it will be of no help to you on bats. The only advice I can offer in regards to killing bats is just to jump when they’re overhead as it can help you get that extra shot in. Here’s the tainted core macro that you will be required to have if you’re dps’ing elementals.
/use Tainted Core
/y <------- TAINTED CORE TO: %t ! ! !
/s <------- TAINTED CORE TO: %t ! ! !
/script SendChatMessage("!!! YOU HAVE THE CORE !!!", "WHISPER",nil, UnitName("target"));
OTHER MACROS AND KEY BINDINGS
There is not much advice I can offer when it comes to key bindings. Use what you feel you’ll be most effective with. Personally I like to have my trap, feign, wing clip, and a few shots bound right around my movement keys. My mouse has two buttons on the left side and I have them assigned to hunters mark and pet attack. Binding “pet follow” to a key is also very helpful. I consider myself very good at controlling my pet and I attribute it to my key bindings. As I mentioned earlier, binding your shot macro to the mouse wheel is great for spamming.
Onto macros…here’s what I use…
I Win: this is my cooldown macro...great for unloading dps and also nice for duels
/cast Rapid Fire
/stopcasting
/use Bloodlust Brooch
/stopcasting
/cast Bestial Wrath
/stopcasting
/cast Intimidation
Focus: I use this to set someone as my focus…obviously. Here’s why…
1) I have my tab key set to assist my focus (usually the main tank) which makes it very easy to target the skull marked mob.
2) I use a misdirect macro that misdirects onto my focus (posted next). On a fight like Al’ar…I set my focus as the add tank. This way, when adds spawn, I just use my Misdirect Focus macro and put some shots on them. It’s very helpful in situations where you need to be quick and save a resto shaman from their massive healing aggro.
/focus target
/w mollari ~%f is your Focus~
Misdirect Focus: Casts a misdirect on your focus.
/cast [target=focus,exists] Misdirection
/y ~~Misdirecting %t onto %f~~
Misdirect Pet: Casts a misdirection on your pet, can be nice when trying to grab a weaker mob off a healer or something while using your pet to tank it.
/cast [target=playerpet,exists] Misdirection

That should cover just about everything. If you have any questions, feel free to message me in game. Enjoy the guide.